In 1959 I was old enough to join the library. I filled out a card at the counter – with a dip pen and ink. In the UK dip pens were still the norm at public places like post offices and libraries. I wasn’t old enough for a driving licence though.

Thanks for your comment, Michael. I’m curious to know if you are right- or left-handed. My mother was left-handed and told me how she struggled with dip pens in school, even to the point where her teachers said she’d need to learn how to write with her right hand. (It didn’t take.)

Sean, I’m right handed. My brother is left handed and in our school days only fountain pens were allowed. He had a number with different curves to the nib to try to avoid smearing the wet ink. He’s a ‘pusher’ so his hand goes over the line he’s just written. ‘Hookers’ hold their hands well above the line and curve their wrists at an extreme angle so as to pull the pen like a right hander.
My wife is also a left handed ‘pusher’ and she has problems with roller ball pens. Somehow paper fibres seem to get trapped in the ball and clog up the pen. Her mother, also left handed, was forced to write right handed at school.
I still think that in some ways the ball point pen didn’t replace the fountain pen as much as it supplanted the dip pen on post office counters and the pencil in pocket diaries.